I'm supposed to be driving. Lead Plastic Surgeon released me from driving restrictions yesterday. I don't want to drive. Want is the correct word. I CAN drive. But I'm finding I don't want to drive. Let's face it, driving is not comfortable. While I can raise my arms and place them on 9 and 3 (or is it still 10 and 2?), I'm mentally and physically uncomfortable sitting behind the steering wheel. I buckle my seat belt across my chest and while it sits there fairly comfortably as long as I am perfectly still, there is this overlying thought of what if I was in an accident or even make an abrupt stop and my incision is rammed with high force against said seat belt. Or worse, the air bag is deployed. And what about speed bumps? They carry their own folly as my automobile traverses their hardscape.
I'm supposed to be driving. I don't want to drive.
Despite this irrational (rational) dislike for driving in current state, I went to my garage, opened the car door, slid behind the wheel, buckled the seat belt, started the engine, put the car in reverse, and saw my look of intense dislike glaring back at me in the rear view mirror. I could see it plain as day. My face did not want to drive a car. The grocery store is less than half a mile a way. I used the excuse of needing 1 cucumber and 1 tomato to traverse the pavement from here to there. My knuckles, my rear-end, and my teeth were all clinched in disdain as I drove at a ridiculously slow speed the 0.5 mile route where I arrived at the parking space. I put the car in park, unclinched everything I had clinched, and let out a deep sign of relief while refusing to think about the drive back home. My face was still soured in the reflection. It has a mind of it's own and refused to give in to delight.
I unbuckled the seat belt, opened the car door and stood up in the parking lot where I became acutely aware of how out of place I felt. I've felt this before, in fact after every breast surgery. You fully know that on the outside you look like any other women on a mission to restock her pantry, but on the inside you are fully tuned in to the fact that you have two grey and pink wool socks stuffed in your sports bra, one on each side of your incision. Your boobs are squished into the, formerly 2, now 1 "uniboob" that only a sports bra can create. You have not a stitch of makeup on (which is ok were this the only issue, but putting the whole package together creates discord) therefore your ghostly pale post-surgery glow gives away your status. Your hair hangs limply where you husband dried it the previous night in the only way he knew how. You are still wearing the pajama bottoms you had on the past 2 days. And your t shirt carries no curves (gone is the shape and lift of underwire) but instead is replaced by a flat span of uniboob and belly where you are not sure where one begins and the other ends. In your mind, every eye is on this disheveled poster woman of "disheveled mess". In full awareness of what you have on display, you grab your basket and hobble over to the produce section and grab your 2 items and rush (ok, you are still hobbling) to the self check out aisle so you don't have to face the perky 17 year old check out girl and bag boy. Less than 10 minutes later you are climbing back in your car and then you realize you now have to drive again.
That's exactly how it unfolds and a reminder of how ridiculous our thoughts can be sometimes. I'm fully aware that I probably look like any other women in her lounge wear at the grocery store. There is no bulge of the socks to be seen as they cleverly blend in under the tshirt, no visible scar that everyone glares at, simply a wind swept hairdo and a fresh from the gym (?) make-up free face. Sure I shuffle in slow steps but so do most people do after a long leg-workout (convincing, right?). I'm 100% incognito just like everyone else with everyone assuming I came straight from the gym instead of my sofa.....yet somehow in our own mind we think we are anything but. What we think is obvious to the person across the produce aisle is not even on their radar. We would swear every eye is on our incision. We let our self-conscious irrational thoughts dictate reality, and I for one know that is absurd. But it's there, in the middle of the grocery visit, making you crave your sofa where all the presumed weird things about your appearance go un-noticed by the cat.
These thoughts stay with you after the first surgery for many months. You will assume every eye is on your chest (and in some cases it is, people can't help it once they know about your surgery, but theirs is un-intentional and not vindictive, just a reflex to the knowledge). You will feel as though your scar is on the outside of your shirt instead of in. But as time goes on, you eventually stop thinking about your new breasts (it's not that they are good or bad, they are just new) and instead of it being your every waking thought, it becomes a passing moment in your day at best. But it takes a while, so be patient with yourself. If you have subsequent surgeries, the thoughts will return with each trip to the OR, but they are shorter lived - a week, a month, just a wee bit of time. Right now I am right back in the middle of it, but now I have a few "encounters" with people under my belt so it will most certainly fade into the background once again in no time. And I will soon see myself again for who I am - A strong independent woman who loves thunderstorms and seeing big dogs hanging out the back window of a car, who adores the transition of summer to fall, who could spend hours escaping in a historical fiction book, who craves sincere friendship, who really wants to live with a water view, who married her God-Sent after she gave up on finding him, who is really worth knowing once you get passed her introverted shell, who is mesmerized that Grace is the best life has to offer and thrives in knowing life is so much more because of following Him, who kicked lymphoma in the hiney and chose the "crazy" choice" and now no longer fears breast cancer.
Disheveled, scarred, and embracing our sock filled uniboob. But gosh darn it, we are awesome. Be patient with yourself, it just takes a little time.
